


Two Hearts As One

by kaijusizefeels



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: AUish, F/M, M/M, Not angsty, Only Slightly Angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-30 22:40:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10886397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijusizefeels/pseuds/kaijusizefeels
Summary: On Wednesday, Illya had kissed Napoleon with the intensity of a starving man coming upon a feast. "Peril," he had murmured in surprise, and then watched with disappointment as Illya walked away with a quick excuse.On Friday, Napoleon had caught him kissing Gaby softly behind the pillars of the departure gate at Aéroport de Paris Nord, his tall form bending down as if to shield her from the world.





	Two Hearts As One

**Author's Note:**

> Mouse over for the translations. Beta-ed by my own grammar nazi Manasi. Russian corrected by the wonderful Atanau.

On Wednesday, Illya had kissed Napoleon with the intensity of a starving man coming upon a feast. "Peril," he had murmured in surprise, and then watched with disappointment as Illya walked away with a quick excuse.

On Friday, Napoleon had caught him kissing Gaby softly behind the pillars of the departure gate at Aéroport de Paris Nord, his tall form bending down as if to shield her from the world.

Oh, Napoleon thought, I guess Peril just needed someone to practice with.

He resolutely chose not to think on the matter any further. That wasn’t difficult, especially when a relatively simple affair of saving a scientist in Varna from kidnappers turned out to be a lead to a weapons-smuggling ring spanning across Europe and North Africa.

While searching through yet another decrepit, supposedly abandoned warehouse, Napoleon barely had the chance to shout out a warning to Illya and Gaby before some oversized lug wrapped his meaty forearm across his throat. Then he didn’t get a chance to dwell on anything at all.

 

* * *

 

“Napoleon.” A familiar baritone whispered to him from the dark.

Peril! Perhaps a bit later than usual. He would have preferred a rescue before Colonel Stoyanov had his fun with the whips, but better late than never. "Glad to see you again, Peril," he tried to say despite the protest of his bruised throat.

"Der'mo."

Then a large hand attempted to haul him up, the movement causing the barely scabbed over wounds on his back to start bleeding anew. Napoleon moaned softly.

“Postoj, u nego vsja spina v krovi." He heard the familiar Russian voice from a different corner of his cell. Beyond some slaps, he did not remember being hit on the head, or being drugged through the meager amount of food and water he had been given.

How could he explain that he was seeing one Illya standing guard by the door while being gently, so gently, maneuvered into the arms of another? "Peril, I think I must have been hit more times than I thought. I'm seeing two of you right now," he told one of the mirages before drifting away.

 

* * *

 

Napoleon woke up in a decidedly more comfortable environment. Whatever they had given him must be magic, because he was only feeling the faintest sense of numbness from his shredded back. It was also possible that he hadn't woke up at all, because he still saw double — two identical Russians looking at him anxiously from his bedside.

"Please don't tell Waverly but I think there is something wrong with my head."

"You're going to be just fine, Cowboy," Illya #1 told him with a smile.

Illya #2 just looked at him sadly. Then turned to his mirror image and said, "Ty ne dolzhen byl ostavljat' ego odnogo."

"Gde ty byl? Ty dolzhen byl srazu idti sledom."

The rapid exchange in Russian was too much for Napoleon to follow in his poor state. But it was clear to him now that Illya #1 and Illya #2 were not figments of his febrile imagination. He settled back into the pillows to study the figures, identical in their clothing, their mannerism, their physical appearances, including the scars on their faces.

"Peril, I always knew that you had to be the product of some mad scientist's laboratory!" Napoleon interrupted their bickering, which had grown heated enough that both of them were clenching and unclenching their fists in anticipation of a fight.

"Don't be ridiculous, Mr. Solo. The correct answer is always the simplest." All three of them turned their attention to the door at the sudden appearance of Waverly. "The KGB simply took advantage of the fact that Illya Kuryakin has an identical twin."

Napoleon gaped at him. "A twin," he repeated. How could he have missed something as monumental as that? And yet… he recalled being surprised all those months ago in Berlin, when Illya had caught up to them quickly on foot after being left behind by Gaby in her car. And he recalled Illya's tendency to disappear immediately after he was released from medical after an injury. Still, how had he not seen it?

"Who is Illya Kuryakin?" he asked.

Simultaneously, the two blonds answered, "we both are."

"They were trained together specifically to be the same person, a ruse if you will," Waverly explained. Then he said brightly, "I see that you are well on your way to a successful recovery, Mr. Solo. I will leave you in the capable hands of our medical staff. Mr. Kuryakins, good day!" 

Waverly departed as unobtrusively as he appeared.

More importantly, he had left them alone so that Napoleon could ask the question foremost on his mind.

"Who was it that kissed me?"

 

* * *

 

For minutes, there was nothing but silence; the twins suddenly decided that their hands were the most interesting things in the world. Finally, Illya #1 rolled his eyes in an expression alarmingly similar to Gaby's and nudged the other, "skazhi yemu."

"I'm sorry Napoleon." Illya #2 finally looked up. "I made mistake."

"A mistake." Napoleon tried the words in his mouth and found them tasting like ash.

"Nyet! He means," Illya #1's outburst surprised them all. "They came for us the night after they sentenced father. A man from KGB told us, from this day on, you are no longer two boys but one. You are each other's shadow. You will eat the same, talk the same, think the same. One will be the sword our enemies see before them; one will be the dagger that comes from behind. If you do not do this, then we will send you and your mother to join your traitorous father. This is your one chance to spare her of that fate."

"And that is how it has been since," Illya #2 finished. "We trade off when convenient or necessary. One is Illya; one is shadow."

Napoleon listened and felt sick, "half a life." He remembered what he said to Illya — but which one — in that West Berlin cafe way back when. "You were just boys. They gave you no choice before they took away both your lives."

They shrugged in sync. "It was enough. But ever since we met you and chop shop girl, we are no longer satisfied with what we have." 

Napoleon drew in a deep breath, feeling hope bloom in his chest. "That wasn't you kissing Gaby at the airport."

Illya #2 shook his head. He reached for Napoleon's hand, lacing their fingers together. "I am sorry, Cowboy. That day, I wanted," he glanced briefly at his twin before turning back to stare at Napoleon with bright blue eyes, "I wanted you the same way he wants Gaby."

All at once, Napoleon knew without a doubt whom he had pulled from the lake and shared the ride with on the Vespa, who it had been who saved him from Rudi's electric chair, and whom he had given the watch back to.

"Illya, I," he stopped, not sure how much of his feelings he should divulge. "Waverly knows now. You two don't have to live like that anymore. You can lead separate lives." Through lowered lashes, he studied Illya #2. "Whatever you want, Illya." Napoleon decided that that was the sentiment closest to the truth.

"Get better soon, Cowboy," Illya #2 wished, pressing a light kiss to Napoleon's forehead. The twins stood up to leave when Napoleon suddenly remembered. "Who is going to explain all of this to Gaby?"

 

* * *

 

Gaby's nonplussed reaction surprised them all. "I had my suspicions. I was planning on sharing them with you, Napoleon, if you hadn’t managed to get yourself kidnapped again," she said as she stole some grapes from his get-well basket.

"I wasn't kidnapped." Gaby raised an eyebrow. "I was waylaid. More importantly, how did you know?"

"Woman's intuition." She then uncorked the bottle of wine that had been a gift for him and poured herself a generous glass. "That one there," she gestured — how Gaby could differentiate the still identically dressed twins apart baffled Napoleon — " _he_ doesn't look at me the same way he looks at you, like you hung the moon in the sky."

His Illya looked up from his chess game and smiled. For the first time in years, Napoleon blushed, then bursted into laughter at Illya's sudden crestfallen expression when his brother smugly declared checkmate.

"Match-revansh!" One tall blond growled at another.

"At least now we know how he managed to lose games against himself," Gaby shared a grin with Napoleon.

 

* * *

 

"Doing okay, Cowboy?" Illya asked Napoleon for the umpteenth time since having been checked out of medical. He just didn't expect for Illya to be still asking while he was bending over an equally naked Napoleon; he probably should have.

"I'm going to die of frustration if you don't hurry up and fuck me. It's been four weeks." Four weeks of getting to know more about his Illya, four weeks of suffering through winks and teases from Gaby, four weeks of not much action beyond too-chaste kisses.

Impatient now, Napoleon canted his ass to rub against the body above him, only to feel a firm hand stilling him.

"Americans are always in a hurry," came the measured reply.

"You brute," Napoleon thought uncharitably even though said brute was currently pressing soft kisses along his spine, careful of all the bruises and mostly healed lacerations.

"Maybe I like you like this. On edge, desperate," Illya huffed in laughter.

Though *finally*, his long fingers, wet with lube, stopped teasing Napoleon's sensitive rim and sunk inside.

Napoleon curled his toes into the silky bedsheets. Everything was too much and not enough.

"Illya, oh Illya." He turned his head, wanting to refamiliarize himself with Illya's tang of salt, iron, and gunpowder. His effort was rewarded by answering passion; lips and tongue swept across his. And then, hands braced around his hips, and he was being breached by a length considerably thicker than a couple of fingers, perfectly angled so that Napoleon shattered with pleasure along each thrust and pull. Breathless murmurs of "solnyshko" whispered in tempo accompanying the cacophony of their racing hearts.

 

* * *

 

Illya shifted so that Napoleon could spread indolently atop of him. Both of them radiated contentment and satisfaction. Pressing his nose to the crook of Illya's neck, Napoleon sighed, fingers tracing aimlessly through the mass of chest hair, darker and slightly curlier than the hair atop Illya's head.

He stopped at an old bullet wound on Illya's shoulder. "Mission?" And because he was curious, he asked, "He has this too?"

"Yes. Sometimes we can hide away until wounds heal but not if they are permanent. For this, I shot him myself."

"What?" Napoleon lifted his head, abhorred.

"Someone else might be careless. We had to be the same."

Uncharacteristically at a loss for words, Napoleon reached for Illya's hand instead. He pressed his lips to each knuckle reverently and remembered all the scars and marks decorating Illya's body. He thought about the twins, having to hurt one another just to preserve their great secret.

Illya continued, "But not anymore. I have you all for myself now, Napoleon."

"Yes, you do." He leaned up and kissed Illya deeply again. "How should I call you two now?" he wondered aloud.

"What is wrong with Illya and Peril?"

"Could work. But I want to know what your parents called you? They couldn't have named you the same as well." Illya was quiet for so long that Napoleon thought he fell asleep.

"Artyom and Kirill," Illya finally said. "Was many years ago. They called me Tyomik and him Kiryusha."

Encouraged by Illya's quiet, wistful, admission, Napoleon decided, just as he chose the watch rather than the gun, to take another leap of faith. Within Illya's embrace, he began his story about a boy who had grown up during the aftermath of the Great Depression and had gone to war far too young. "I was baptized —"

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time trying to write a sex scene. It was really difficult trying to describe tab A and slot B sexily. Ha ha ha.
> 
> Found a really useful guide for [Russian naming convention resource ](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/RussianNamingConvention?from=Main.RussianNamingConvention) on TV tropes.


End file.
